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History Quotes

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History Quotes

“[Among the books he chooses, a statesman] ought to read interesting books on history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse.”

Book Philosophy Government Science Interesting Fiction History Written Subjects Ought Accounts Prose Verses Good Book Statesmen Science And Philosophy Interesting Book

Book:Bully!

Source: Bully!

“The selective winnowing of time leaves only a few recognizable individuals behind for the historian to light on. Thus the historian who finds the human being more interesting than what the human being has done must inevitably endow the comparatively few individuals he can identify with too great an importance in relation to their time. Even so, I prefer this overestimate to the opposite method which treats developments as though they were the massive anonymous waves of an unhuman sea or pulverizes the fallible surviving records of human life into the grey dust of statistics.”

“The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners; but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader.”

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“Now, there are roles which are capturing a vibrant moment in an older woman's life. There was a time when those interesting roles stopped at 28. A few years ago we would have been finished by our age.”

Years Has Beens Moments Age Interesting Roles History Generations Years Ago Finished Older Women

Author:Maggie Gyllenhaal

“The East is marvellously interesting for tracing our steps back. But for going forward, it is nothing. All it can hope for is to be fertilised by Europe, so that it can start on a new phase.”

Interesting Steps History Europe East Phases Tracing

Book:The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

Source: The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

“The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.”

Answers Interesting History

Author:Susan Sontag

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”

“A man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed such a man exists.”

Ifs Men Writing Interesting History Bias

Book:The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Source: The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

“History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion.”

Source: The Life of Reason: Human Understanding

“Human behaviour reveals uniformities which constitute natural laws. If these uniformities did not exist, then there would be neither social science nor political economy, and even the study of history would largely be useless. In effect, if the future actions of men having nothing in common with their past actions, our knowledge of them, although possibly satisfying our curiosity by way of an interesting story, would be entirely useless to us as a guide in life.”

“History is a kind of introduction to more interesting people than we can possibly meet in our restricted lives; let us not neglect the opportunity.”

People Kind Opportunity Interesting History Sarcastic Neglect Introduction

Author:Dexter Perkins

“The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves.”

Inspirational Motivational Causes Interesting History Events

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero